Sunday, September 27, 2015

So the Associated Press has decided that in their style climate skeptics are not skeptical at all, but mistaken. They recommend referring to them as those who reject climate science or doubters. Lots of Eli's friends and neighbors have been talking about this. Victor Venema has a good thumb sucker. Thoughtful, kind, considerate. In other words not necessarily Eli's sort of thing

Peter Sinclair also comments, and links to an interview Bob Garfield of NPR conducted with Seth Borenstein of the AP. The problem of what to call people who do not accept scientific evidence is not limited to climate science. One can toss evolution, vaccination, GMOs onto the barbie.

Personally, I like the term "climate truthers," which better captures the flavor of the thing. It's not like "those who reject mainstream climate science" all have the same story about why they reject it. There are dozens of varieties of counter-theories, as many as there are theories about Kennedy's assassination. What unites them all is a conviction that the official story can't be right, that it's covering for a nefarious agenda, that the truth is out there.

To borrow some words from Jonathan Chait if you dig deeply into any of these you find a tangle of denial and cant undergirding an unshakable commitment to voodoo. In that spirit, Eli would like to undertake (wonderful word usage there) a short journey into the taxonomy of denial.

In the deppest level there dwell the rejectionists, the folks who know the science, even continue to publish about the science, but completely reject it. Characters like, well like our second-most current Republican candidate for President, the good Dr. Carson. Usually this rejection has religious or political roots (Hi Dr. Roy), but rejection it is.

Above them are the deniers. The don't need a reason, they just deny. They will, of course, accept any silly reason you give them, and they even on occasion try and act out some science. Here, of course we have the bloggers, Willard Tony Watts, Andrew Montford, those fold, and of course, they need the rejectionist to point to for justification,

ADDED: The bunnies have uncovered another beast, the groundhog. The groundhog is well known for popping up at a different place or time with the same argument that was torn apart at a different place or time. Groundhogs suffer from post traumatic argument memory loss syndrome.

ADDED: Victor V suggests the butterfly who flits from argument to argument saying whatever he things he can just get away with. From playing the luckwarmer here to fundamentalist ice-ageism at Jo Nova.

Somewhat higher in the circle of denial are the luck warmers. Yes, yes, the science is fine, but we will just pick the lower limit which may, or may not be so bad, and let's all go out and have a drink. Of course, even if you look at their cherry picks things will be pretty awful.

Then there are the doubters. The problem with the AP recommendation, is that real doubters are, not involved in denial of anything, but just have not been concerned with the problem at hand. They have doubts because they don't have information, and unless they think the issue will become important to them, they have no desire to really get any information.

Of course, given family, friends and the internet, the information that is most easily available to anybunny is the information in his social circle, and if that circle includes the circles of denial, it is very easy for them to be mislead. And the Exxons of the world have paid a pretty penny to make sure that misinformation is readily available

There are also skeptics, people who want to look into everything for themselves. Given enough time real skeptics get to the right place, but it takes time to understand even simple things about complex issues and there are pitchmen with three cards on every corner.

In short are the deniers and the rejecters doubters? If the AP thinks this so, to use a recent tweet Eli has seen (the author is welcome to claim credit), irony has had its feeding tube removed, Death is said to be imminent. Self-awareness is not available for comment.

Please explain why the famously desperate Tuvalu has not yet sunk beneath the waves, and why the Australian Bureau Of meteorology archives show no change in mean sea level in that area for the past twenty years?

"I am not so much interested in global warming. ... To me it is a very small part of my life. I don’t claim to be an expert. I never did. I simply find that a lot of these claims that experts are making are absurd. Not that I know better, but I know a few things. My objections to the global warming propaganda are not so much over the technical facts, about which I do not know much ...

I think the difference between me and most of the experts is that I think I have a much wider view of the whole subject. You see, I starred in the movie Grumpious Old White Man Ever."

So there you go, Freeman Dyson admits that he's an idiot on global warming, which can only mean that 85 is just slightly retarded on said subject matter.

I'm pleased to take the appellation indicated by the number of San Francisco 49er tight end Vernon Davis. I hope I have a better week than he and his teammates did. They had to deal with the resurgent Arizona Cardinals. I only have a typhoon blowing through town.

The self-effacing Mr. Dyson has a lot of unwanted assistance in the effacing department. Given the 15 years he spent in climate science, I would venture to say that his self criticism is a relative term, not an absolute one. And given that no-one has been able to refute his rather simple, plain English criticisms of model construction and performance, the now-evident (if short term) improvement to the planet's greenery due to increased CO2, and especially given the vitriolic lunacy of his critics, I hope you'll forgive me if I continue to side with Mr. Dyson.

The Australian Bureau Of Meteorology SEAFRAME gauge shows a +3.7 mm/year change in mean sea level in that area - TUAVALU - from 1993 to 2010. And that's after adjusting a +4.0 mm/year change for barometric pressure, etc. Another gauge in that area with a much longer history shows a change of +0.9 mm/year but has less precision and control than the SEAFRAME gauge.

Our very own 85 played 15 years of professional football in the NFL, but he wore a tinfoil hat instead of a helmet the entire time as he thought he was playing Sarcastaball.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarcastaball

Our very own 85 still wears that tinfoil hat to this very day ...

Dan: Well, during this time out we're happy to be joined by the commissioner of the NFL, Freeman Dyson. Commissioner, a lot of hoopla about concussions this year in the NFL. How's the league handling all that?

Dyson: Well, there certainly are interesting statistics coming out, Dan, and we are deeply concerned, anduh and waiting to see if there's... really any direct correlation between GHG's and global warming.

Dan: Oh, and it looks like some of the MFL alumni are takin' the field now. There's All-Pro safety Anthony Watts [fat, but the most lucid of the alumni. Watts stops and waves to the crowd], and fullback Bob Tisdale. Looks like his pants are down around his ankles. [Tisdale stops and waves]

Dyson: Somebody should let him know. Oh, and Old Surehand Willis Eschenbach [a black alumnus who's stooped and walking slowly holding an imaginary tray], who seems to be baking an imaginary cake, Dan.

Dan: Yeah, not sure if that's meant to be a cake or, or perhaps a, a loaf of bread, but he definitely thinks he's baking something.

Venemous Victor of the censorius nature, I would accept climate Trump if you would accede to 'alarmist chump.' What say you?

No Time For Sergeants, someone should have told you that brevity is the soul of wit. You should inspect your soles for shit.

I never thought I would miss sod... although blogger profile does a fairly good impression.

You forgot the halftime cheer, Sargent. "We're alarmist Konsensus Krazies, we're always stoned but never lazy. We never win an argument, but that won't make us tolerant. We're fools for Christ, the Paraclete, we're glad the guilliotine ain't obsolete." Thankfully I'll stop there. It doesn't scan and was threatening to turn into the Sister Suffragette song from Mary Poppins.

I'm informed, and I have serious doubts about quite a few issues. Because my job used to involve finding technical skeletons in very complex closets I have a tendency to hang on to weak spots like a bull terrier to a bone. When I find a weak spot I turn out to be right about 60 to 70 % of the time. This global warming story has weak spots.

Tom: The self-effacing Mr. Dyson has a lot of unwanted assistance in the effacing department. Given the 15 years he spent in climate science, I would venture to say that his self criticism is a relative term, not an absolute one. And given that no-one has been able to refute his rather simple, plain English criticisms of model construction and performance, the now-evident (if short term) improvement to the planet's greenery due to increased CO2, and especially given the vitriolic lunacy of his critics, I hope you'll forgive me if I continue to side with Mr. Dyson.

BPL: When, precisely, did Dyson spend 15 years in climate science? Somehow I don't remember that aspect of his career.

FL: I'm informed, and I have serious doubts about quite a few issues. Because my job used to involve finding technical skeletons in very complex closets I have a tendency to hang on to weak spots like a bull terrier to a bone. When I find a weak spot I turn out to be right about 60 to 70 % of the time. This global warming story has weak spots.

BPL: You are not well informed, and I've seen no sign yet that you understand the basic physics involved.

BPL, one reason you alarmist kooks get your butts handed to you in discussion with the civilized world is that you in fact are more uninformed than those you criticize.

"Around 1979, Dyson worked with the Institute for Energy Analysis on climate studies. This group, under the direction of Alvin Weinberg, pioneered multidisciplinary climate studies, including a strong biology group. Also during the 1970s, he worked on climate studies conducted by the JASON defense advisory group.[18]

So in areas you are qualified (your job) you are wrong about finding a weak spot 30-40% of the time... and yet you are so confident about the weak spots in climate change science as to largely dismiss it. Hmmm

Tom: BPL, one reason you alarmist kooks get your butts handed to you in discussion with the civilized world is that you in fact are more uninformed than those you criticize. . . "Around 1979, Dyson worked with the Institute for Energy Analysis on climate studies. This group, under the direction of Alvin Weinberg, pioneered multidisciplinary climate studies, including a strong biology group. Also during the 1970s, he worked on climate studies conducted by the JASON defense advisory group.[18] . . . Dyson retired from the Institute for Advanced Study in 1994."

BPL: Why do you assume all his time at the Institute for Advanced Stud[ies] was spent on climatology? You're assuming that his climate science absorbed all his time at IAS, when in fact a search of the literature shows that he spent much more time on particle and relativity physics.

One reason you denier kooks get your butts handed to you in discussion with the civilized world is that you in fact are more uninformed than those you criticize.

I have wondered if Dyson was involved with the JASON's investigation into the 'threat' of AGW in the mid 1970s. The unclassified version of their work is in this 1979 paper :-

http://fas.org/irp/agency/dod/jason/co2.pdf

Note that this expresses a high degree of confidence in quaite a simple energy balance model, and derives a figure of 3.8K as the climate sensitivity to a CO2 doubling. (page 107) With some caveats that this does not include the impact of albedo changes from seasonal changes in ice and snow cover.

I suspect the full findings of the JASON group scared the hell out of them then, while the published work does not discuss the impact of a 7F jump in temperature they were bound to consider the implications.

Perhaps Dyson, and Happer, another ex-JASON who is ... scornful of the serious threat AGW may pose, are surprised that their worst case fears of the time have not happened in their lifetime, and have taken this to mean that models (like the one they developed) can over-estimate the severity of the effect. The fact that things are not as bad as they thought it might be from the 1979 work has left them in the position of the person falling off a 30 floor building.23 floors down and still fine so far.....

85-year old Ivar Giaever (shared Nobel Prize in Physics, 1973) gives Freeman Dyson a run for his money here:

"I am not really terribly interested in global warming. Like most physicists I don’t think much about it. But in 2008 I was in a panel here about global warming and I had to learn something about it. And I spent a day or so — half a day maybe on Google, and I was horrified by what I learned."

Dyson has his head up his illustrious backside when it comes to climate change.

All contrarians do. It is a necessary condition for being a contrarian.

Actual experts who actually understand the actual science because they have actual domain expertise are essentially unanimous in accepting the reality and risks of CC. As opposed to denying the reality and risks by ignoring most of the relevant evidence like lukewarmers do. This is why I have come to regard lukewarmerism as simply denial dressed up in sciency-sounding language.

Tom must be getting a bit old, because he's forgetting that blog commenters have corrected him on the science for years now.

Actually, I think Tom's problem is that he is in denial. He blocks out the fact that everything he says about climate science is routinely pulled apart by more knowledgeable and intellectually honest commenters here and elsewhere.

For anyone not in denial, this serial wrongness and incessant correction would breed a sense of unease. Perhaps eventually even the acknowledgement of error and a desire to get the facts straight. But not for Tom.

For Tom, every day is day zero, the tabula is gleamingly rasa-d and the denial bucket is fresh and brimful. It all begins anew.

No Time For Sergeants, actually I just say you're a fool. You, BBD, blogger profile, BPL--you just feed off each other in a spiral of stupidity.

It's fun to watch BBD and blogger profile turn on each other as they argue how many solar panels can fit on the head of a pin. It's fun to watch BPL state with such certainty that the planet will kill us all in 50 years. And it's fun to watch you try to make some kind of point with the oddest of allusions and assertions.

All this was done more artistically by commenters of a previous generation that no longer participate in the climate wars. Gone are the days of Dano and sod, bless their souls.

izen, thanks for the thoughtful comment and link. It certainly seems that some of those who protest the loudest expected to see more calamities by now. (A loaded term, I realize, and an arguable point at best.)

"Atlas Shrugged remains relevant to the debate on climate change not because skeptics think of themselves as heroes in an Ayn Rand novel, but because the Klimate Konsensus continuously acts like Ayn Rand villains."

Now you know where 85 obtained their abject biases.

85 continuously tries to drive down the middle of the road, the road with the double yellow line (see latest book cover), 85 likes driving down that double yellow line ...

One can completely accept the science BEHIND GMO's, however GMO's, themselves, are NOT science but a very dangerous application of science to the realm of big agriculture.

This blog's attitude about GMO's is reminiscent of famous, eminent climate change denier, Alexander Cockburn, who, with his projected massive intelligence, could not differentiate between the science of climate change and the idiotic legislative measures proposed/taken by various governments to address it.

I was not thinking of a specific person. Just noticed that the arguments and tone of a large percentage is adjusted to the newspaper or blog they are at. Although some seem to think that they can get away with WUWT-quality nonsense at my place.

"could not differentiate between the science of climate change and the idiotic legislative measures proposed/taken by various governments to address it."

However,the problem with GMOs isn't the regulation, but the lack of it.

When there's no oversight and huge secrecy, with trillions of dollars at stake, there's massive scope for corruption.

When effects won't be known until five years too late, and denied for a further 20 or more, there's no room for risk.

GMOs as "golden rice" or similar agri-business is NEVER going to be safe or acceptable by its very method of application.

GMOs as a "lab crop" for biomedical is already a resounding success (in so far as it has managed to get traction), because it's so highly contained that contamination and unorganised massive release is practically forbidden.

Just found a neat little bit and looking for somewhere to put it so I can find it again, and bob's your uncle. Dyson knows nothing about climate science, and like Giaever is willing to use his authority to discredit those who do, because politics and ego I guess.

Since y'all mentioned floods, though, how about Norfolk Virginia. Just found this:

"Overcoming climate denial

"One note was repeatedly sounded over the course of the meeting, held at the campus of the College of William and Mary: The political challenge of overcoming climate denial is hampering local efforts to respond to and plan for changes already underway.

""I'm often hit with the idea that there's no proof that (climate change) is happening," said Lewis "Lewie" Lawrence, director of the Middle Peninsula Planning District Commission. "And I say, 'There's plenty of proof,' and I'll pull out the Sewell's Point tide gauge, and they say, 'Oh, they make that stuff up.'"

"Maps show old islands in the Chesapeake Bay that today have disappeared beneath a rising sea, Lawrence said. "And people still say, 'Those islands were never there, they're making this up.' "

"There are signs that the state could be turning a corner. The once-dominant tea party conservatives now appear to be fading; the states moderates are pushing back against the conservative policies of recent years. Coastal officials and planners hope that they can take advantage of the window and plan a coordinated and rational approach to sea-level rise and storm management.

""We're not retreating," said Dave Hansen, a former Corps of Engineers regional director and now deputy city manager of Virginia Beach. "We're going to elevate."

"Added Norfolk's Mayor Fraim: "Someone has to own this issue... The water is coming.""http://www.dailyclimate.org/tdc-newsroom/2013/09/virginia-rising-seas

It's an interesting problem. At what point do the floods at your door persuade you you were wrong? Where is your doorway? Some of us need wider horizons.

As Dyson wrote in 1999, "In the nineteen-sixties the fluid dynamicist Syukuro Manabe was running global climate models on the supercomputer at the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in Princeton. Manabe began very early (before it became fashionable) to run models of climate with variable amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. He ran models with carbon dioxide at two and four times the present abundance, and saw in the computer output the rise in average ground temperature that is now called Global Warming. He told everybody not to believe the numbers. But the politicians in Washington believed. They wanted numbers, he gave them numbers, so they naturally believed the numbers."

Dyson knows Manabe. Manabe talked to Dyson about his climate models. Perhaps Susan was party to the conversation.

Dyson continued "Manabe's numbers were unreliable because his computer models did not really simulate the physical processes going on in the atmosphere. Over and over again he said that his purpose when he ran computer models was not to predict climate but to understand it. But nobody listened. Everyone thought he was predicting climate, everyone believed his numbers.

..."To summarize what we have learned, there is good news and bad news. The good news is that we are at last putting serious effort and money into local observations. Local observations are laborious and slow, but they are essential if we are ever to have an accurate picture of climate. The bad news is that the climate models on which so much effort is expended are unreliable because they still use fudge-factors rather than physics to represent important things like evaporation and convection, clouds and rainfall."

Over and over again he said that his purpose when he ran computer models was not to predict climate but to understand it. But nobody listened. Everyone thought he was predicting climate, everyone believed his numbers.

We could try a little experiment and ask climate scientists today why they use climate models. I would guess that most would claim to be using them to understand our climate, not to make specific predictions. The only people who seem to think that climate models are being used to make predictions are those who then claim that this isn't possible. I think that's called shooting down your own strawman.

Ah, the trickster, the befuddled academic struggling to understand and the village idiot obsessed with the ridiculous notion that science cannot exist without published papers. Wotta crew.

It's funny. Back six years ago when I was writing that climate models were great for understanding climate and not useful for predicting it, people called me 'denier' and shit like that.

Now they resort to colloquial and idiosyncratic appellations like 'luckwarmer', which doesn't work as well as there is no parallel group of 'luckfarmers' who want to kill Jews. Oh, well, there's always mitigation skeptic, which really sounds like a plumber's apprentice.

If that doesn't catch on you can always call the Feds and whine about a RICO rap.

"Here, we show that the gain factors obtained from satellite observations of cloud radiative forcing are effective for identifying systematic biases of the feedback processes that control the sensitivity of simulated climate, providing useful information for validating and improving a climate model."

Seasonal Variation of Surface Temperature Change during the Last Several Decades (published in 2011)http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/JCLI-D-11-00129.1

"The seasonal variation of the surface temperature change appears to be broadly consistent with the result from a global warming experiment that was conducted some time ago using a coupled atmosphere–ocean–land model."

On the warming in the tropical upper troposphere: Models versus observations (published in 2011)

"5. Summary and Conclusions

One of the striking features in GCM‐predicted climate change due to the increase of greenhouse gases is the much enhanced warming in the tropical upper troposphere. Here we examine this feature by using satellite MSU/AMSU‐derived deep‐layer temperatures in the tropical upper‐ (T24)and lower‐ (T2LT) middle troposphere for 1979–2010. It is shown that T24‐T2LT trends from both RSS and UAH are significantly smaller than those from AR4 GCMs. This indicates possible common errors among GCMs although we cannot exclude the possibility that the discrepancy between models and observations is partly caused by biases in satellite data.

(I would include the 2nd paragraph but it appears that there is a 4096 character limit to posts)"

ON THE RADIATIVE EQUILIBRIUM AND HEAT BALANCE OF THE ATMOSPHERE (published in 1961)http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.395.1404&rep=rep1&type=pdf

"In order to incorporate the effect of radiation into the numerical experiment of the general circulation of the atmosphere, a simplified scheme for computing the radiative temperature change is constructed."

So the question becomes does Dyson's memory serve him well? Please remember that there is no specific quote of Syukuro Manabe from Dyson and more specifically no DATE and TIME!

In summary Dyson 'left the building' a long time ago while Manabe is still 'in the building' go figure.

So when Dyson claims "supercomputer" in the 1960's he's WRONG as there was no such thing as a "supercomputer" in the 1960's there were just 32-bit computers called mainframes and something called double precision FORTRAN.

A "supercomputer" is 64-bit top-to-bottom, single precision on a "supercomputer" is a 64-bit word, try running that exact same code on your WindowZ desktop and see what happens (been there done that).

"The history of supercomputing goes back to the early 1920s in the United States with the IBM tabulators at Columbia University and a series of computers at Control Data Corporation (CDC), designed by Seymour Cray to use innovative designs and parallelism to achieve superior computational peak performance.[1] The CDC 6600, released in 1964, is generally considered the first supercomputer.

The term "Super Computing" was first used in the New York World in 1929 to refer to large custom-built tabulators that IBM had made for Columbia University."

Because he's so incensed by this accurate portrayal of his "skepticsm" that he's incapable of shutting the hell up about it, and therefore supplying much material that supports Vern and Eli's supposition.

Fullerthanadunnywagon, there are thousands of times as many eminent PhDs who have looked into it, including EVERY SINGLE NATIONAL SCIENTIFIC ORGANISATION that have come to a different conclusion on the same evidence.

If eminence is proof of correctness, then you, and the other deniers, including Dyson, are entirely and utterly wrong.

" Technically what 85 is doing is known as double hearsay ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearsay

"Double hearsay is a hearsay statement that contains another hearsay statement itself.""

This is endemic in deniosphere. Usually Al Gore and AIT, where "everyone" "knows" that Al said that Florida would be flooded by 2050. Yet the ONLY place where you find it said that he said so in AIT *is in a report on AIT*, NOT in the video or its transcript itself.

"The only people who seem to think that climate models are being used to make predictions are those who then claim that this isn't possible."

They ALSO think a past reconstruction MAKES PREDICTIONS. Therefore the nonexistent haitus "proves" MBH98 wrong because the future didn't increase the rate of warming as fast as extending the line would give.

"The CDC 6600 was the flagship mainframe supercomputer of the 6000 series of computer systems manufactured by Control Data Corporation. The first CDC 6600 was delivered in 1965 to the CERN laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland,[1] where it was used to analyse the two to three million photographs of bubble-chamber tracks that CERN experiments were producing every year. In 1966 another CDC 6600 was delivered to the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory, part of the University of California at Berkeley, where it was used for the analysis of nuclear events photographed inside the Alvarez bubble chamber.[2] The CDC 6600 is generally considered to be the first successful supercomputer, outperforming its fastest predecessor, the IBM 7030 Stretch, roughly by a factor of three. With performance of up to three megaFLOPS,[3][4] the CDC 6600 was the world's fastest computer from 1964 to 1969, when it relinquished that status to its successor, the CDC 7600."https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CDC_6600

"three megaFLOPS"

"The CDC 6600 is generally considered to be the first successful SUPERCOMPUTER!"

Manabe's 1st paper was published in 1961, 1961 < 1966 last time I checked. But I tell you what, I'll take Manabe's own words over Dyson's memories any way you look at it.

Dyson sort of remembers stuff from the unknown distant past in a 1999 interview, still double hearsay, you quoting Dyson NOT quoting Manabe (actual DATE and TIME of their original conversations and what was actually said TBD).

We do have Manabe's own words circa 2013 in the peer reviewed climate science literature.

Now, please show us all of Dyson's own words circa 2013 in the peer reviewed climate science literature.

T: Dyson knows Manabe. Manabe talked to Dyson about his climate models. Perhaps Susan was party to the conversation.

BPL: And I know Manabe, and what Manabe said in 1971 is hardly relevant to what's been shown to be true over and over and over again by thousands of workers in the past 44 years. That's another thing you just don't get. You think it's a war of citing authorities, that if you can just find a suitably impressive authority to quote, all your foes will be silenced. It doesn't work that way. What matters is the evidence, the whole evidence, and nothing but the evidence. On that score, you've got nothing.

T: Back six years ago when I was writing that climate models were great for understanding climate and not useful for predicting it, people called me 'denier' and shit like that.

BPL: And one of the things we understand from those models is that you can't flood the air with greenhouse gases without raising the surface temperature. Of course, we already knew that from radiation physics.

BPL, you're too busy believing your own lies about me--and the lies of the other idiots here. I happily accept the physics showing the effect of the greenhouse gases.

I'll save you a little time here. The reason the sewer rats call me 'denier', 'luckwarmer,' 'mitigation skeptic' and other delightful names is that I have come to think that atmospheric sensitivity to a doubling of concentrations of CO2 is actually in the lower half of the IPCC's range of 1.5C to 4.5C.

Now, as Tom will recollect - I hope vividly - I once caught him out lying about what he believes about climate sensitivity.

Regrettably, Tom's at it again:

I'll save you a little time here. The reason the sewer rats call me 'denier', 'luckwarmer,' 'mitigation skeptic' and other delightful names is that I have come to think that atmospheric sensitivity to a doubling of concentrations of CO2 is actually in the lower half of the IPCC's range of 1.5C to 4.5C.

No, Tom, what you *actually* believe is this, which I've extracted from your political hit-job on climate science entitled Climategate: The CRUTape Letters:

The defining characteristics of a “Lukewarmer” have emerged over time and can best be described as follows. “Lukewarmers”, like “alarmists” and “warmers” believe that man’s activity of adding GHGs to the atmosphere will indeed warm the planet. However, they tend to attribute the warming seen to date to a variety of sources: GHGs, land use changes, Urban Heat Island, and natural variability. With regard to policy, the “Lukewarmers” takes the position that actions should be taken based on the certainty of the science. Perhaps most notably, the “Lukewarmers” focus much of their effort on getting access to scientific data and methods.

And:

As lukewarmers, people who believe in global warming but not that it will be a catastrophe, we feel a fair bit of distance from both sides.

TL;DR? Summarised:

It's not a big deal, CO2 is over-rated, it's not even all us, sensitivity is low and there's nothing to worry about. And anyone who disagrees with this inaccurate and Pollyanna-ish bullshit is an alarmist mofo.

Susan Anderson quoted: "I'm often hit with the idea that there's no proof that (climate change) is happening," said Lewis "Lewie" Lawrence, director of the Middle Peninsula Planning District Commission. "And I say, 'There's plenty of proof,' and I'll pull out the Sewell's Point tide gauge, and they say, 'Oh, they make that stuff up.'"

Economists assume that people behave rationally. Also when it comes to the trade off between a climate change damages and adaptation. They forgot the climate trumps. Who do not even allow civil servants to mention the term global warming. America will be hit much much harder than economists have computed. Much much harder than the rest of the world.

Yes, Venemous Victor, it's perfectly rational to post with the title 'Mitigation Skeptics' and when you get a comment on why Lukewarmers are not mitigation skeptics with a bullet point list of actions we advocate-- to delete it saying it was off topic.

As for the ridiculous lie that lukewarmers aren't mitigation sceptics, WTF?

I have never encountered a lukewarmer who wasn't peddling two memes: (1) that the mainstream view is 'alarmist' and (2) its corollary, that CO2 emissions need not be cut urgently and deeply to avoid serious risk.

The very essence of lukewarmerism is that CO2 does *not* pose as great a threat as most climate scientists believe. If the threat is overblown, then so is the need for mitigation.

Getting back to one Mike Tyson ...http://www.sns.ias.edu/sites/default/files/files/Dyson_Bibliography(1).pdf

Dyson = BIG FAT ZERO!

He does have one peer reviewed paper that mentions CO2 in the journal Energy (published in 1977)Can we control the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere?http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0360544277900330

"Energy is an international, multi-disciplinary journal in energy engineering and research. The journal aims to be a leading peer-reviewed platform and an authoritative source of information for analyses, reviews and evaluations related to energy. The journal covers research in mechanical engineering and thermal sciences, with a strong focus on energy analysis, energy modelling and prediction, integrated energy systems, energy planning and energy management. The journal also welcomes papers on related topics such as energy conservation, energy efficiency, biomass and bioenergy, renewable energy, electricity supply and demand, energy storage, energy in buildings, and on economic and policy issues, provided such topics are within the context of the broader multi-disciplinary scope of Energy."

> I don’t like mistakes, but I do make them. In the climate wars I really don’t like mistakes because they clutter up the conversation and give Konsensus Kooks ammunition they cheerfully use against me and other Lukewarmers.

"... the now-evident (if short term) improvement to the planet's greenery due to increased CO2,..."

Drought-Induced Reduction in Global Terrestrial Net Primary Production from 2000 Through 2009; Maosheng Zhao, et al. Science 329, 940 (2010); DOI: 10.1126/science.1192666"The past decade (2000 to 2009) has been the warmest since instrumentalmeasurements began, which could imply continued increases in NPP; however, our estimatessuggest a reduction in the global NPP of 0.55 petagrams of carbon. Large-scale droughts havereduced regional NPP, and a drying trend in the Southern Hemisphere has decreased NPP inthat area, counteracting the increased NPP over the Northern Hemisphere. A continued declinein NPP would not only weaken the terrestrial carbon sink, but it would also intensify futurecompetition between food demand and proposed biofuel production."

Now, tell me again, who's pissing down their pantleg and, in fact are more uninformed than those they criticize. I'd say the Trumpettes, full of brass, sound, and fury; yet signifying nothing.

"... GOSH, the deniers are energized tonight. What got their goat?" The Lamb of God - speaking through Pope Francis to the denialist Congress. House Speaker Boehner's already jumping ship, Senator Rubio's walking back his position, and Governor Kasich helpfully revealed that compromise (which led to his fellow Congressmen and Clinton actually balancing the budget) and acceptance of climate science are too sane to lead the Teapublican party. I'm thinking about changing my registration to Republican so I can vote for Trump; I think that an electorate that desires to have Trump as President "...know what they want, and deserve to get it...," as Mencken said.

" America will be hit much much harder than economists have computed." Models, schmodels; who believes what they have computed. If the worst hits the fan, with Trump as President, CEO, CFO of USAInc, we'll just declare bankruptcy and build new casinos on the Jersey Shore - even if that means Atlantic Highlands instead of Atlantic City.

ELi:"First there were a bunch of 48 bit machines built by Seymour Cray for CDC. Those were optimized for scientific computing. As Eli remembers 64 bits came in when Cray left CDC to build his own machines. From the dim reaches of memory comes the thought it proved easier in the end to build for 64 bits for hardware reasons, although for computation 48 was enough."

It is slightly strange to find computer architecture history at RR, but might was well get it clear.

1) In the 1950s, larger computers tended to be strongly optimized either for scientific computation or business applications, the former more concerned with floating point, the latter with characters and often decimal arithmetic. Most used 6-bit characters, and word-oriented machines had words that were multiples: 12, 18, 24, 36 and 48, for example.

====1965 IBM/360 32-bit (4x8-bit, but byte addressed), designed to replace mix of incompatible technical computers. 360/9x were high-end versions to fight with 6600, not particularly successful. 360/65 or 75 much more popular.

After this, almost no one designed new computers with 6-bit characters, but switched to 8. In an alternate universe, one might imagine IBM having gone with 4x9-bit characters per word, but memory was expensive. DEC switched away from 12,18,36 to 16 and then 32.

Technical customers were annoyed at the loss of precision going from 36 to 360-style 32-bits, which made them have to jump to 64-bit DP....1976 Cray-1, 64-bits - vector supercomputer by Seymour.We have 2 in the Museum.

===Technically:1) There is a minor advantage for power-of-2 words sizes in the encoding of shift instructions.

2) But, in byte-addressed machines like S/360 (and almost all new computers since), any larger units *must* be power-of-2 in number of bytes. I.e., typically 4 or 8 8-bit bytes. The bytes could have been 9-bit and that would have worked.

3) In 1991, the first 64-bit micros were announced, and eventually propagated widely. Don't expect 128-bitters any time soon.

Thanks, I was hoping you would show up. My 1st real desktop was the SGI Indigo (R3000) my friend had the R4000 model.

Fortran at UVM on an IBM 360 in 1975. BASIC at VTC via Dartmouth timeshare in 1972.

DEC hardware early 80's (Intel XP was originally the DEC compiler as I'm sure you know). The Intel XP 2015 compiler is what I'm currently using today.

I sort of reverse engineered the DEC RAND() function for use on 16-bit DOS (found the algorithm in a library book, coded on a 32-bit MicroVAX, surprised the heck out of me when the built in RAND() and my code gave the exact same values on the MicroVAX). Whatever Fortran compiler I used in DOS didn't have a built-in command for RAND().

Don't know if you ever made it to WES (Vicksburg, VS) back in the day?

It seems highly likely that Manabe was running 48-bit code in the 60's, my standard candle was the CDC 205 that I mentioned above, I'm pretty sure it was 64-bit as I ran the same code as either single precision (CDC) or double precision (MicroVAX). I also ran the single precision (CDC) code on the MicroVAX as is, it did give me a whole bunch of very wrong numbers.

"Then there are the doubters. The problem with the AP recommendation, is that real doubters are, not involved in denial of anything, but just have not been concerned with the problem at hand. They have doubts because they don't have information, and unless they think the issue will become important to them, they have no desire to really get any information.

Of course, given family, friends and the internet, the information that is most easily available to anybunny is the information in his social circle, and if that circle includes the circles of denial, it is very easy for them to be mislead. And the Exxons of the world have paid a pretty penny to make sure that misinformation is readily available"

Hence the psychic satisfaction in kicking Tom in his oblate spheroids. The opportunity for a reasoned approach to cutting emissions in the U.S. arguably ends in 13-and-a-half months, and "50 Shades of Denial" provides a welcome grin.

(I propose "denial-denying deniers" for those who accept the possibility of a sensitivity approaching 3.0 K whilst denying the projected consequences and decrying attempts to reign-in emissions.)

I don't understand your definition of "rejectionist". If your example guy was Lindzen it might make more sense, if you stretch the meaning of the word "know". But "the good Dr. Carson", "our second-most current Republican candidate for President"? Consider the recent New Yorker article "Ben Carson's Scientific Ignorance". If Carson "knows" climate science the way he "knows" the physics and biology concepts he is quoted on in this article, he doesn't know it at all.

Oh--BPL, regarding climate models, here's what I wrote to Viscount Monckton in an interview I did with him:

" I agree that there is a lot of work ahead of us all in attribution and quantification. In a less politically charged environment this would be grounds for excitement. It is a pity that it all has become a partisan political issue. Both alarmists and skeptics have contributed to this polarization.

As for your final graph below, I would amend the title–the models have indeed failed, but they have failed to do what they were not designed to do. They are not meant to accurately predict future temperatures at a decadal level. They have done a good job at showing the broad sweep of climate over much longer periods of time and contributing to our understanding of the various forces at work in shaping it. If you criticize them for not doing what the alarmists had hoped they would do, you might spare a moment to praise them for doing a good job at what they were designed to do."

The problem with you, Tom, is that you mix superficially reasonable statements with your dogwhistling and insinuation. Then when challenged about the latter, you point to the former and ignore the actual challenges (there are several examples upthread).

"Not only are today’s computerized climate models (the basis of the alarm) not known to represent climate properly, they cannot be programmed to do so since we do not know the underlying science well enough to know what to program the computers to compute. Yet, on this basis, the developed world is revamping its entire energy infrastructure."

God, it's cool to see it in action. See the name, ignore the content."

Tom, being Fullerthanadunnywagon, sees no problem when it's done at the mention of Mann, Realclimate or the IPCC.

Of course, Vicky Monkfish is a bug-eyed loon. There's enough evidence for this to shift several Everests. Therefore it is beholden to anyone putting the Mad Monckton's statements up for "proof" to be worthy of consideration, given the FACTS that he claims to have cured AIDS and also Graves disease (but apparently never used the cure on himself).

" Dyson wrote in 1999, "In the nineteen-sixties the fluid dynamicist Syukuro Manabe was running global climate models on the supercomputer at the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in Princeton."

There were no supercomuters in the 1960's-- back then a megabyte was a lot of RAM, and 3- D GCM's didn't evolve until the '80's , by which time Jerry Mahlman had replace Mahlman at the Princeton GFDL .

I admit that all of Tom's crying "Freeman" got me a little chubbed-up. Strawman Dyson aside, any of Tomfool's sciencey comments here are likely contradicted by him elsewhere, and rather easy to find. Shut's him up pretty well.

in my vernacular, Super begins with the Cray- and GCM modeling when the output maps begin to feature pixels smaller than continents. The 360 was indeed the dawn of this , but that dawn broke in the 70's not the decade before.

Same reason you're still alive. Exactly the same reason. Good things take a little time to happen (unfortunately), snowballs do not instantly turn into water when temp rises above freezing point neither does some water instantaneously change into a snowball when temp sinks below freezing, and shite happens not completely instantaneous either (though almost, though after the hidden build-up -> catastrophe theory, black swans).

Tom, have you finished folding my laundry yet? When that's done, you might wanna give your pal Mike at BTI a call. He's across the pond compromising your "middle position" conceit, and with a potty mouth to boot. Poor form for the ostensible leader of a nascent movement.

Tom says " It is a pity that it all has become a partisan political issue"

Republican spinmeister Frank Luntz says -"A compelling story, even if factually inaccurate, can be more emotionally compelling than a dry recitation of the truth.""Voters believe that there is no consensus about global warming within the scientific community. Should the public come to believe that the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly.

Therefore, you need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate." Factually inaccurate.

"'Climate change’ is less frightening than 'global warming' " But you can still falsely charge it was alarmists that changed it from 'global warming' to 'climate change'.

"It's all in how you frame your arrgument, and the order in which you present your facts." Spin and cherrypick; they're not Republican facts or Democratic facts; they are just facts of nature; the problem for so-called conservatives is that nature has a liberal bias.

It didn't "become" politicized, Republicans chose to attack the science, rather than propose conservative policies to deal with the problem - and politicized the science. It was a foolishly risky gambit; physics doesn't do political negotiation. It could have been that the scientific understanding was inaccurate, as a result of some grand conspiracy, and that the physics would have ultimately been found to be in Republicans favor, but it's obvious to many people that denialists lost that bet. The other problem is that the time spent arguing "it isn't warming" "CO2 isn't the cause""we're not causiing CO2 to rise""more CO2 & warmer temperatures will be beneficial ('.... the now-evident (if short term) improvement to the planet's greenery due to increased CO2' in this thread). "we can't do anything about it because China and India" & "doing anything about it will destroy the economy just like Romneycare2.0, er, Obamacare" means any conservative soutions that Kasich, for example might propose will be attacked as untrustworthy Since it took Republicans 20 years to even admit there was a problem, any "soution " they propose will be as ridiculous as their previous same ole same ole denial. Even Exxon knew what was going to happen(http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2015/09/22/what-exxon-knew-then-is-what-we-know-now/), and chose their profits over good citizenship; When the Republican party took the fossil fuel companies money and did their bidding(deliverables), they sold their soul to the devil.

"There never was or is a formal definition for a 'supercomputer' heck you could be walking around right now with a thousand supercomputers in your pocket ..."

Funny, I got it. "A gigaflop", and YES, that DOES mean you can be walking around now with a supercomputer (not a thousand, that would be a teraflop. How big are YOUR pants?) in your pocket soon (not yet).

It does have to be a gigaflop, though, and most phones don't DO a gigaglop, they can manage a gigaop, billion integer opterations a second, most x86 ops requiring 2-4 ticks to complete and many CPUs able to manage 2GHz, even if they aren't able to fit in a pocket quite yet.

And it DID lead to the idea that Saddam was getting supercomputers because he could buy a cluster system of PS2s that could do a gigaflop.

And it IS why they are thinking of changing it to Teraflop, though this would be awkward since that would be rather hard for many current supercomputer installations to manage.

Since "Supercomputer" isn't a technical term, there's no official definition of it, especially with clusters being made of racks of desktop-grade computing, and doubly so now for the convergence of grid computing with supercomputer computation tasks.

1GFlop is a widely used definition, even leading to scare stories about nuclear arms development by the (by that time demonised) Saddam Hussein. IIRC that was the definition used to restrict computing exports to Iraq at the time by the USA.

Fullerthanadunnywagon, you have a somewhat overdeveloped sense of self worth. There's nothing that you or your fellow pinheads here can do or say that will make any sense.

But you can keep preening here and elsewhere about how you bravely confront the warmist scum, helping preserve Science Purity for future generations.

Meanwhile YOUR vitriolic anger is evident in your very first post here and your continued railing against Victor with your appellation. Something he said (and what other people are telling you) is getting you FURIOUS.

You're not in denial about reality wrt climate alone. You're in denial of a whole shedload of things.

Don't forget to click on "said" when they are boring. Answering gives them energy.

Sorry I copped out on Freeman Dyson, the judgment was my father's. Of course, his insistence on demonstrably incorrect material does him no credit. Mostly it's a matter of realizing he's not expert in climate, and rather a technocrat, along with what appears to be some weird ego stuff. It is unfortunate that people without experience with science think all physics is the same.

Susan, far more worrying than your copping out on Freeman Dyson is your copping out on dealing with the issues raised in various venues where you participate.

Dyson did spend 15 years working in climate science. Dyson is among the first to discuss the various flavors of physics. When he says he's not expert, which he often does, it carries the connotation that nobody is.

Other than getting drafted by the government into serving on various bodies, I am not sure why you would label him a technocrat. It smells like ill will rather than team spirit, don't you think?

I'm glad you support your father's point of view. Family loyalty is so important these days. Just ask Jeb Bush.

Yet the molecules of CO2 don't care the least little bit what any of these people think or what ever we call them. Those little molecules just keep on merrily absorbing infrared heat energy.

Not one of these folks, by whatever label we or they choose, is able to shine an infrared lamp on CO2 and not have it absorb energy. Not Freeman Dyson nor anyone else can wave their hand and magically make CO2 not absorb infrared heat energy.

So, then when this CO2 gets added to the air, it makes the air absorb more heat. It's just not that difficult of a concept. People freely accept that adding sugar to water makes the water sweet, or that adding black ink to white paint makes the paint darker. Adding CO2, which absorbs heat, to air makes the air absorb more heat.

I went to the hardware store and had them add some tint to some paint and nobody accused me of participating in a global UN conspiracy to undermine capitalism.

Some folks try to bypass this by claiming that while CO2 absorbs heat, there is insufficient amount of CO2 in the air to make any difference. To those I say that science is all about experiment and observation, so try this experiment and observe the results: fill a 50 gallon aquarium with clean clear water. Now shine a nice bright lamp on the side of it and observe that the light goes right through and comes out the other side. Next, add 400 ppm of black india ink to the water and observe what happens. Does the lamp still shine right through the water, or is it absorbed by the tiny "trace amount" of 0.040% of ink in the water?

"Mostly it's a matter of realizing he's not expert in climate, and rather a technocrat, along with what appears to be some weird ego stuff. "

And that's one reason he's such a hit with the deniers. They're generally old and identify with him. They're wrong, and people tell them this, so they feel like they're being persecuted for their opinions, just like Dyson. And they have huge egos that cannot be blamed for anything.

That all adds up to a hell of a lot of identification with Dyson.

The fact that Dyson is really talking out of his hat and is really, REALLY clueless on the subject (and careless of being so) is of no import.

Dyson is a false authority and relying on this crusty old man set in his ways is a logical fallacy.

Especially since thousands of times as many similarly eminent authorities disagree with him.

The morons need to say WHY he's right, not just point to him and go "He's DYSON!".

Again. Why is anyone still talking to Tom Fuller. He has never contributed a single lucid or illuminating thought to any discussion. Any discussion in which Tom is involved is invariably about only one subject: Tom Fuller.

"This ain't a public space, and the DNFTF remark does not even concern rights. "

DNFTT is trying to tell everyone to shut up and stop talking. Totally about free speech.

If you're trying the "not a public space", then you're not the one to say who speaks or not. Neither snarkie.

DNFTT ALSO lays the lie to the tiresome Merkin claim of "I may not like what you say, but I'll fight to the death for your right to say it", along with the aforementioned "Troll's charter" you merkins keep piling up to get something that someone doesn't like but YOU are fine with removed ("the only response to bad speech is more speech, not censorship").

Seems like you'll fight for the right to tell people to STFU, but insist it should be spelt DNFTT.

> I would ALSO point out telling others to STFU via rebranding to DNFTT is not playing nice.

That's a tu quoque, Blogger profile, and only Eli's opinion matters at Eli's regarding what counts as playing nice.

Look. You must be new here, unless you're Spock uppetting. Eli's business would run more smoothly if every bunny behaved. Alas, food fights happen. They're silly, but they do happen. Groundskeeper Willie's very good at what he does best, and bunnies simply can't resist, even after a few years of that crap. For instance:

> I've been on a ship. I spent four years in the Navy. Cabins? You're dreaming.

http://rabett.blogspot.com/2010/11/infra-digging-michael-tobis.html

Note the year.

***

In ClimateBall, you ought to keep your eyes on the ball. You can try to make physical plays if you like. At least try to play the ball.

The problem with Groundkseeper Willie is that he has a knack to become his own ball. When people plays the ball (his sorry self), he starts to rip off his shirt.

You know, I once lived with a guy who was a doorman. He worked in night clubs. You have no idea how many people tried to pull that trick every single night, either with clients or with him.

snark: Again. Why is anyone still talking to Tom Fuller. He has never contributed a single lucid or illuminating thought to any discussion. Any discussion in which Tom is involved is invariably about only one subject: Tom Fuller.

BPL: I agree. Unfortunately, there's no way to put someone on permanent filter with the cheap blog software Eli uses. You have to do it for each message each time. Since we don't want to leave Rabbett Run, we occasionally can't resist answering TF's BS.

Yup, not talking about first ammendment, except how you discard it utterly when you're actually going to be made uncomfortable with it.

I'm talking about censorship, the mob mentality where "Political Correctness" is the actual social harm it really is: the society demanding YOU DO NOT SAY THAT.

I'm talking about you browbeating and trying to shame people for their rebuttal of BS because YOU are too lazy to do it, and don't want to see others who do what you can't be bothered to do, but know you should.

I'm talking about censorship, which has NAFF ALL to do with First Ammendment. And is done all the time. It's only you merkin morons who insist that censorship only exists as a bad thing if government does it, allowing you to browbeat and shame people into shutting up.

THEY HAVE THE RIGHT to answer Fullerthanadunnywagon. You may claim "I have the RIGHT to tell them to stop it!", but I HAVE THE RIGHT to tell you to stop browbeating other people for what they do. IT'S NOT YOUR BLOG, a fact you only bother with when you can hit someone else with it to shut them up, NEVER a factor to get YOU to shut the hell up.

BPL: His head was throbbing, and the single naked lightbulb hanging overhead from its frayed cord wasn't helping. He stumbled off his cot, thought of looking in the mirror, but decided against it.

He looked around the tiny SRO apartment. Books and literature were stacked high in piles against all the walls. He had written many of the books and pamphlets himself, but none had ever sold well. He blamed the system. The way it crushed original thinkers like himself.

He lurched his way to the single, tottering chair in front of the PC--still warmed up, of course. He never turned it off except when rebooting. You were vulnerable when you booted. The NSA was always watching.

"Take this, biotches," he muttered. He typed out WHAT A BUNCH OF MAROONS. "Ha! Ha! That'll show 'em!" He went into a prolonged giggling fit, only stopping when the laughter turned to coughs.

Another 18 hour day of blog posting loomed ahead. Tom wasn't intimidated. He saw it as a challenge. "I'll show you," he muttered under his breath. "Someday I'll show ALL of you!"

"...I have a tendency to hang on to weak spots like a bull terrier to a bone."

Eeew. Does he mean his OWN weak spots? Because he's not managed to find any elsewhere as far as is evidenced with his posts or other peoples' comments.

Unless he means "I bull on about BS and won't ever give up because I don't have the cranial capacity to know or care what I do or say" and he's hanging on to the weak spots that give up and let him have every word he wishes ungainsaid.

"Not even with your rhetorical question that starts with "is this what freedom of speech"?"

Yeah, given that there's the Amendment and there's the idea and I started with the idea but you morons came back with the LEGAL thing (that amendment doesn't apply to blogs, but the IDEA does), what PRECISELY did you think would work in your favour here?

Or are you going to chop and change? When I started out, it was the idea. Then you all whined about your privilege to complain at how others engage in discussion because of the legal process as opposed to the idea, so I then did so too.

This isn't about the legal aspect of freedom of speech.

This is about the idea.

So if we're talking about the IDEA, you have no right to claim people STFU. YOU are entirely free to ignore Fullerthanadunnywagon. And you're ALSO free to tell others (including Fullerthanadunnywagon) that you're doing so.

If we're talking about the legality, then only Eli has the right to tell people STFU, neither you nor snark do. NEITHER of you have the right to tell people what they're allowed to post, and NEITHER AM I.

And if we're not talking about anything other than personal privilege, then you're free to tell people to STFU, and I'm free to tell you to STFU too.

Tom: You deserve each other. I hope you all end up in the same padded cell.

One attendant turned to the other. "Why does he keep saying that?"

The other man shrugged. "I don't know. The docs call it projection."

They spent another minute looking in through the narrow window. Tom sat in the corner on the floor in the little room beyond. The orange coat restrained his arms. Once again Tom looked at the window and saw the attendants. "You deserve each other! I hope you all end up in the same padded cell! HA! HA!" He started laughing hysterically, until the laughter finally degenerated into sobs.

The first attendant sighed heavily. "I hate to see him like this. Can't they give him something to calm him down."

The second attendant shrugged. "They've tried everything in the book. Talk therapy--"

"Talk therapy, ha! Freud lives."

"Chlorpromazine, haldol. Nothing shuts him up. All they can do is try to isolate him from the other patients."

The first attendant looked into the cell again. "Poor bastard."

"Yeah," the second said. "Yeah. Come on, let's not stand here all day. Ellison wants the whole level swabbed out with disinfectant, and Mr. Reynolds will need his catheter changed."

No, you just want to scream and shout at others because they're not doing what you want them to.

Tough shit, they don't have to do what you demand, you petulant moron. Nor does snark get his way to demand or demean people because they don't do what he wants on someone else's blog.

Oh, and about the "Thank you for reminding me that it's not my blog even when you shout it, Blogger profile.", I was totally the first person to tell someone posting on a blog that says it's Eli Rabett's blog right at the beginning that this blog was Eli's blog, so I was totally in the wrong there.

Oh, hang on, that's not true, is it. I WASN'T THE FIRST to claim "THIS IS ELI'S BLOG!!!!! STFU!!!!", was I.

Seems like you need to get in touch with someone else rather than play Little Big Ego at the battle of Wounded Pride.

The problem is that whenever Tom is part of the conversation, the conversation winds up being entirely about Tom. He can't help it, poor dear. He knows nothing about anything but himself, so it's all he can talk about. There are thousands like him, spewing silliness loudly. You can recognize them on crowded public transit because they will be the only ones who have an entire row to themselves.

Unfortunately, Tommie has discovered the Intertubes, so he comes on here to spew. Let us be as smart as the public transit customers and let him spew on his own little thread.

The problem, snarkpants, is that every time you whine and whinge about what other people post, the conversation winds up being entirely about what everyone else is allowed to post. Lets be smart and if you wish to spew your diatribe against those doing something you don't like with their time make your OWN blog and demand it there.

Eli, can we maybe have a thread where people who wish to tell others to what they're allowed to post can post their opinions on? Snark and neveraudit can then complain about everyone's posting preferences there and be happy together with no discouraging words to change their mind.

Popper and Feynman too, Blogger Profile: they are contrarians' favorites. That doesn't mean they're well understood. Is there a specific passage in Voltaire's Sur la tolérance that you wish to discuss?

***

> I WASN'T THE FIRST to claim "THIS IS ELI'S BLOG!!!!! STFU!!!!", was I.

As far as I can tell, the closest anybunny was to tell another bunny to STFU was here:

And if we're not talking about anything other than personal privilege, then you're free to tell people to STFU, and I'm free to tell you to STFU too.

BP, I don't have a problem with the substance of what you are saying. There is no substance there with which to quarrel. Rather, my objection is to the utterly boring manner in which you express yourself. Really, living inside your head, how do you not blow your brains out?

Indeed he was, if by that you mean American, and not a pubic wig. I was referring to the fact that Feynman was also quoted, which is why I quoted your "frequently quoted." My point was that being quoted doesn't matter much unless what is quoted is understood.

That Feynman is or isn't a Merkin is not that relevant. Tocqueville knew more about Merkin democracy than many Merkins.

The response by nea, "Popper and Feynman too, Blogger Profile: they are contrarians' favorites." Could only refer to them being Americans if the preceding sentence -" Yet he's frequently quoted" - is ignored.

It may be your habit to ignore complete sentences others write, but you should not project your habits unto others.

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Eli Rabett

Eli Rabett, a not quite failed professorial techno-bunny who finally handed in the keys and retired from his wanna be research university. The students continue to be naive but great people and the administrators continue to vary day-to-day between homicidal and delusional without Eli's help. Eli notices from recent political developments that this behavior is not limited to administrators. His colleagues retain their curious inability to see the holes that they dig for themselves. Prof. Rabett is thankful that they, or at least some of them occasionally heeded his pointing out the implications of the various enthusiasms that rattle around the department and school. Ms. Rabett is thankful that Prof. Rabett occasionally heeds her pointing out that he is nuts.